The Business Economics and Public Policy major equips future business leaders with the tools to analyze incentives and policies of firms, governments, and consumers. Whether a firm is engaged in real estate development, bringing new products to market, developing new technologies, exporting products, addressing environmental issues, or providing infrastructure services, it will need to be familiar with the incentives of competitors and the role of government so that it can understand which actions it can take, and how other actors will respond.
The major enables students to formulate policy with the best techniques offered by both private and public sector research. The tools will be useful across a range of careers, particularly those that involve developing economies or regulated industries. It helps future private managers to understand, react to, and help form the environment in which they will operate.
The department's courses focus on understanding the implications for the business world of increased globalization; technological change, such as the internet and e-commerce; the increasing role of intellectual property rights; and the public demand for greater government efficiency. These new developments have resulted in privatization, deregulation, and changes in health, antitrust, and environmental policy " all of which critically affect business interests.